Evaluation of Nyumba Ni Choo: A National Campaign to Promote Improved Sanitation in Tanzania Between 2016–2020

This paper presents an evaluation of the means by which the Tanzanian government’s most recent National Sanitation Campaign (2016–2020) achieved its outcomes with respect to increased coverage of improved sanitation facilities. (By the programme's end, awareness of the programme throughout the country was very high [97%], and there was a near doubling of coverage in only five years: from 43% in 2016 to 72% in 2020). The programme relied on multiple channels of dissemination, including mass and social media, roadshows and local events, but no government subsidies. It directly reached households with emotional appeals and approached sanitation-related government officials for stated commitments. Of particular interest is the fact that the causal routes postulated by the programme's theories of change, targeting households as the ultimate audience but government officials as a secondary audience, were probably all important in achieving the programme's objectives. The reasonably high fidelity of implementation, national reach and positive participant reactions to exposures were likely instrumental. The use of targeted emotional appeals may also have been important in driving the observed changes in improved sanitation coverage. Together, these features make this campaign an example of a large-scale project achieving significant household investments in sanitation based solely on persuasion.